Conflicting reports are emerging from Chad today about fighting in the capital, N’Djamena. Everyone agrees that rebel forces are battling government troops in the streets, and some say that rebels have encircled the presidential palace.

While events in Chad may sound, to an American audience, like another repetition of the “endless coups and wars” that engulf Africa, I would like to make two points to put the rebellion into a larger context. First, the situation in Chad flows out of the destabilized regional situation largely caused by Sudan. Secondly, the situation embodies the disturbing consequences of an international system paralyzed by indecision and haunted by the specter of neo-colonialism.

As I pointed out a few weeks ago, escalating tensions between Chad and Sudan threaten whatever regional cohesion is left:

The Sudanese government isn’t the only group bombing Darfur. Sudan has accused its neighbor, Chad, of bombing rebels in Darfur itself. In the last few weeks, Chad has stepped up its rhetoric against Sudan, threatening to cross the border and pursue anti-Chad rebels who hide in Sudanese territory. With both sides lashing out, serious military conflict looks increasingly likely. If that happens, the people of Darfur will be caught in the middle once again - this time in an international war.

The government of Chad’s president Idrissa Deby denounced the rebel offensive as a sign of Sudanese aggression.

Chad says Sudan sent the rebels over from its war-torn Darfur region. Khartoum routinely denies such accusations and accuses Chad in turn of backing Sudanese insurgents in Darfur.

Deby’s Foreign Minister Ahmat Allam-mi accused Sudan’s government of launching the latest Chadian rebel offensive in a bid to block the deployment in eastern Chad of the EU peacekeeping force, which has a United Nations mandate to protect thousands of refugees from the conflict in Darfur.

If so, the tactic has already succeeded:

A EU peacekeeping mission, which was due to start deploying in Chad and neighbouring Central African Republic, announced on Friday that it was temporarily suspending troop flights to Chad.

Whatever comes out of this weekend’s fighting in N’Djamena, it seems to me, will alter the dynamics of the situation regionally and even internationally. If Deby’s troops fight off the rebels, he may seek retaliation against their (perceived) Sudanese backers, and continue increasing Chad’s bombing campaigns inside Sudan. If the rebels win, Sudan may well be able to extend its influence deeper into its neighbor, hampering international peacekeeping efforts even further.

The New York Times has more:

The fighting in Ndjamena will surely further destabilize what is one of the most violent and fragile regions of the world. Chad and Sudan are locked in a tangle of conflicts and have traded accusations and bombs in the past two years as the conflagration in the Sudanese region of Darfur has increasingly consumed Chad as well.

Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees from Darfur are living in Chad, and militia attacks from across the Sudanese border in 2006 forced tens of thousands of Chadians to flee their homes as well. Ethnic violence between Arab and non-Arab tribes that echoes the conflagration in Darfur has forced still more to flee.

Chad’s president, Mr. Déby, shares clan links to some of the leaders of the Darfur rebellion, and the rebels operate from bases in Chad with near-total impunity, which has angered the Sudanese government and raised tensions between the countries.

Chad, meanwhile, accuses Sudan of sponsoring rebellions against Mr. Déby. The three groups that are currently attacking the capital all had bases in Sudan, according to analysts and diplomats, something that would be impossible without Sudanese government sanction.

As I said earlier, this situation flows out of the dynamics of the international response to Darfur, and the actions of the Sudanese government more generally. As with many other failing states, we deny and ignore realities until the situation reaches a breaking point - you only need to look to Afghanistan and Somalia for examples of that, and anyone paying attention to Pakistan is worried that Musharraf’s fragile country may soon join the club.

The responses of international bodies are, frankly, laughable.

The African Union called for an end to the rebels’ advance, and said it would expel Chad from the organisation if they took power.

And:

Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, has also expressed concern at the security situation. A UN statement said Ban was “deeply concerned at the resumption of fighting in Chad … and reiterates the United Nations’ condemnation of the use of military means to seize power”.

Such statements only signal these bodies’ impotence. The problem runs not only to a lack of political will in the international community to intervene in such situations, not only to a lack of ideas about what form intervention should take, but all the way to an utter lack of any strategy beyond empty rhetoric. One reason that the EU force scheduled to deploy to Chad, as well as the UN force limping along in Darfur, are so small is that no one knows how an armed conflict with perpetrators of genocide would be fought. The military strategies for such a campaign do not seem to exist. Meanwhile, the greatest consensus and principles of the post-World War II international community are subverted while ineffective bureaucracies seem to consider making a statement to be an accomplishment.

The fact is, the longer conflicts like Darfur drag out, without a firm response from outside powers, the worse the situation becomes. Genocide and war continue to produce more genocide and more war.

And when some semblance of order is maintained, it’s often because of either dumb luck, or the tug of neo-colonial strings whose existence situations like the one in Chad bring to light. In other words, if Deby hangs on it will either be through luck (being able to fend his enemies off this time), or through some behind-the-scenes help from France (the former colonizer).

French President Nicolas Sarkozy held a meeting to discuss the crisis late on Friday night with senior ministers and military figures. The BBC’s Alasdair Sandford, in Paris, says France is directly involved in the crisis. It dominates the EU force bound for Chad, whose deployment has been delayed because of the fighting…Under a 30-year-old agreement, the French military gives logistical and intelligence support to Chad’s government.

In the short term, of course, it may make sense for international powers to support Deby. But in the long term, he looks like just another dictator backed up by neo-colonial interests. After seizing power in a 1990 coup, he won re-election several times - but as with so many other world leaders, one wonders whether those victories should be seen as confirmation of his democratic or antidemocratic tendencies. When world powers come to the rescue of local strongmen time and again, it just feeds the flames of opposition, ensuring that rebellions will rear their heads again (the current situation in Chad being a sequel to a similar 2006 uprising), or that countries will simply fall apart.

We can’t look at these situations and just shake our heads. And we can’t dismiss them as “tribal African conflicts.” Complicated civil wars fought by sophisticated groups using deadly modern weapons, with competing factions backed by various governments, are neither “tribal” nor “insignificant.” And as the people of Darfur - and people in a widening circle of countries in east Africa - are learning, they are not without massive bloodshed either. As long as the international system continues to stumble along in this fashion, caught between an impotent UN, aggressive pariah states like Sudan, and neocolonial complacency, millions will continue to die.

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